Dressed in a flowing striped maxi dress, a beaming Jessica Simpson smiled as she arrived for a baby shower at the Ivy at the Shore restaurant in Santa Monica. The performer, along with her mom, Tina; sister, Ashlee; and 2-year-old nephew, Bronx, was at the restaurant on Oct. 15 to celebrate childhood friend Stephanie McGuire Terblanche’s impending motherhood — but that’s not the only baby the Simpson clan is getting ready for! “Jessica is so excited,” says a close friend, who confesses that Jessica has been slowly telling all her pals that she and fiancé Eric Johnson, 32, are becoming parents. OK! has the scoop in this week’s issue, on sale everywhere Thursday!

“She joked, ‘Well, now I can eat anything I want and no one will care. It’s just sort of a rule with pregnant women.’ But it was typical Jessica that she was making a joke of it.”

At 31, Jessica has learned to take life’s little twists and turns in stride. Although she originally told her friends that she didn’t plan to have a baby before she was married to Eric, to whom she became engaged this past November, the order of these happy events hasn’t really mattered to her. Jessica is just delighted finally to become a mother.